A King in Hiding (4 page)

We stayed on in Hungary for a while, and Nagy Laszlo and Diana took turns to show us round Budapest. I liked it. Except for the food, which was bland and tasteless. The only things I liked were the noodles, the burgers and the cakes. I wondered why people in Hungary hardly ever ate rice. At home, a meal without rice was just a snack. Some families even had rice for breakfast.

My father explained to Nagy and Diana that we had to carry on to Madrid. They found us a bus, but it didn't go to Madrid direct: it stopped in France and we would have to change in Paris. I didn't want to go to France, I didn't even want to travel through France. A friend in Bangladesh had told me that in France they eat dogs. I tried to reassure myself by thinking about Zinedine Zidane: perhaps it was eating dog that made him so good? But Zidane or no Zidane, there was no way I was going to eat dog. If I went to France I might starve to death. In which case I might just as well go and die in Bangladesh. I wanted to tell my father, but I didn't dare. So I got on the bus with him, and on 17 October 2008 I got off again at Porte de Bagnolet in Paris. The last stop. France.

Chapter 5

WELCOME TO FRANCE

I
n France we don't know a soul, but one of my father's friends in Bangladesh has told his cousin that we're coming, and he's there to meet us at the bus station. His name is M. Bamoun. At last, someone who speaks our language! He has lived in the Père-Lachaise district of Paris for twenty years. He is unemployed, and is struggling to make ends meet. But he and his wife put us up on a mattress in their living room all the same: for us, helping each other out is a tradition.

‘How old are you, Fahim?'

‘Eight.'

‘My daughter Alya is the same age as you: you can be friends.'

I can't wait to play with her. But soon I'm stunned by the way she behaves. She uses bad language, and when she wants something she screams at her mother. In Bangladesh no child would dare behave like that. I don't yet know that in France there are lots of parents who let their children behave like little dictators, and no one seems to mind.

We've barely moved in before I fall ill. I'm all yellow and running a fever. I can't swallow anything and I itch all over. I feel so bad I think I'm going to die. It seems so unfair to die so far from home, in a place I don't even know. My father looks after me. He gives me water to drink and watches over me.

A doctor comes. He speaks to M. Bamoun in French. I don't understand a word. He keeps saying Alya's name. But I'm the one who's ill. The doctor examines me and calls me Alya. I'm furious. I'm not a girl! Can't he see that? But I'm too weak to protest. He scribbles obscure words on an orange form, and M. Bamoun looks relieved.

When my temperature drops my father starts getting ready to leave for Spain, but several people advise us to stay. They say that France protects people like us. I like the idea that a country can defend us against our enemies. So my father makes a decision. We'll stay. While we wait for things to calm down in Bangladesh. While we wait to go home. He doesn't ask me what I think, but I agree with him: it doesn't look as though anyone is going to make me eat dog.

Life with the Bamouns is pretty good, especially the meals: Mme Bamoun is a good cook. But the days drag on for ever. I spend all day watching cartoons on television. Luckily you can understand them even if you don't know any French. When Alya comes home from school she switches channels without asking me. To show me who's boss. I'm jealous.

My father and I go out a lot, to meet people and explore the streets. But our visa runs out, and everyone warns us to look out for the police. So we go out less and less, only when we need to. My father's afraid that they might find us and put us on a plane back to Bangladesh. Direct. I imagine the masked men in black who'll be waiting to kill me as I get off the plane. M. Bamoun is scared too, frightened that someone might report him to the authorities. He tells us that in France you can get sent to prison for taking in friends. So he hides us: when visitors come, we wait on the stairs until they've gone.

One day, I'm on the Métro with my father and M. Bamoun. Suddenly three men in navy blue uniforms and caps appear in our carriage. They look like policemen. People are showing them their tickets. M. Bamoun signals to my father, who grabs me by the hand and jumps on to the platform just as the doors are closing. We charge towards the exit. In front of us are two other men, one black and the other white. The train pulls out, accelerates and is swallowed up by the tunnel. We glance over our shoulders and slow down: phew!

Then all of a sudden the two men in front of us give a start and double back on their tracks: in the passage I can see more men in uniform. Still gripping my hand, my father runs after our two partners in crime. Following their lead, we race down some narrow steps that go down to the Métro tracks. Carried forward by his own momentum, the first man leaps over the rails and is already clambering up on to the platform opposite. My father and I are about to follow him when the other one pulls us back:

‘No! It's too dangerous!'

I'm paralysed with fear. What if the policemen come on to the platform? What if they find us here, skulking in the shadows like criminals? And why have the rails suddenly started to judder and make that deafening noise? I flatten myself against the wall. The man checks the platform in the mirror above our heads, and after a moment that feels like an eternity he signals to us that the coast is clear. We climb back up and get on the train that pulls into the station, trying to look natural. At last the bell rings, the doors close and the train starts moving. My legs have turned to jelly and I want to cry, but I don't let it show. I want to squeeze up against my father but I don't dare. Slowly the knots in my stomach start to unwind.

In bed that night I turn things over in my mind. Why didn't my father, who is so honest, buy us tickets for the Métro? Has he run out of money? Over the next few days, I watch him secretly. I listen in when he's on the phone. He says that we can't stay in the Bamouns' living room for ever. When he asks for money – from his friends in Spain and Switzerland and a cousin in Scotland – he sounds embarrassed.

XP
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Undeterred by his total lack of knowledge of the French language and legal system, Nura set out to find a way of staying in France with his son. There was good community support, and he discovered the existence of the right of asylum, a right recognised by the United Nations since 1967, which allows people who are in danger in their own country to seek the hospitality and protection of another country. He learned that France, ‘home of the rights of man', had offered asylum for several centuries and viewed it as a national tradition. So it was therefore with complete confidence that he took to the tortuous byways of the French legal system and bureaucracy, embarking on a journey that – given the self-evident nature of his predicament – should have taken just a few months. Other Bangladeshis in Paris pointed him in the direction of the organisation France Terre d'Asile (the name means France, Land of Asylum), set up to provide support for asylum seekers, both in making their applications and in their daily lives.

So it was that, after Dhaka, Kolkata, New Delhi, Rome and Budapest, Nura and Fahim found themselves in the Paris suburb of Créteil, a mere stone's throw – as luck would have it – from one of the best chess schools in France.

France Terre d'Asile send us to the Préfecture, a big modern building with windows everywhere: the glass is orange, and to me it looks as though it's holding the sun hostage inside. It must be a magic place, and I hope we'll come back often. As soon as we get inside the illusion is shattered: there are crowds of people waiting, and the minutes crawl by. At last we are seen by a lady with funny red hair who isn't very friendly and gives us a great pile of forms to fill in. Back at home, my father stares in dismay at the long list of questions to which he doesn't know the answers. They ask for names, dates and places that he doesn't know without looking them up. He rummages about in our things, searching for documents and evidence. Then, with M. Bamoun, he writes down our story and describes the problems we had in Bangladesh.

When they've finished, M. Bamoun takes my father to have it all translated. I don't understand why he can't do it himself, as he speaks good French. He explains that you have to use a translator who has taken an oath.

The next day we go back to Créteil. It's raining, and the house of the sun isn't filled with light any more. In fact it's pretty ugly. When I see all the people waiting inside, I begin to hate the place.

XP
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That day, Nura was given temporary leave to stay, which meant that he and Fahim could legally stay in France for a month, the period needed to verify whether or not his application would be considered. Armed with this, they were given accommodation by France Terre d'Asile, initially in emergency hostels and subsequently, when space became available, at the Centre d'Acceuil pour Demandeurs d'Asile (CADA), the centre for asylum-seekers in Créteil.

Thus Nura and his son embarked on the obstacle course that awaits all immigrants arriving on French soil. Of course they had absolutely no idea of what lay in store for them. Despite being involved in community work, I too had little notion then of what daily life was like for asylum-seekers, or of the obstacles they had to overcome. It was a subject in which Fahim was to become my teacher.